


Caught, Held, and Carried

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Category: Video Blogging RPF, Youtube RPF
Genre: Angst and Feels, Apologies, Caretaking, Carrying, Exhaustion, Fainting, Fever, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Procedures, Men Crying, Multiple Selves, Oblivious, Overworking, Queerplatonic Jackieboy/Schneep, Queerplatonic Relationships, Routine, Self-Esteem Issues, Shame, Sickfic, Surprises, Vulnerability, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 04:09:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13895943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: Jackieboy is forced to make up for a mistake he’s made. He’s been forgiven for it far too soon; he never imagined he could feel guilt like this.





	Caught, Held, and Carried

He caught him.

The younger Ego had been putting off rest for so long now and the others had been none the wiser. Guilt was stinging the back of Jackieboy’s eyes and his throat now as he tucked the limp frame of his friend closer against his chest.

How long had it been? Days?  _Weeks?_  His mind raced to calculate it, but there were so many gaps. He’d been so busy, he hadn’t been here…Every morning he’d rushed out the door, hardly speaking to any of them, and every night he came home long after dark and went straight to his room. He’d never taken the single second he would need to look down the hall and see if the light in the lab was still on. He’d never taken  _any_  of those seconds.

 _He hadn’t been here for him_. How could he have overlooked this? How could he have overlooked the deepening shadows under his eyes? How could he have missed the gray undertone to his skin? How could he have ignored the sharpening outline of his bones under the volume of that lab coat?

The fragile façade had finally fallen through and Henrik had fallen with it.

It had been terrifyingly slow. Jackie had gone to visit him, to get his hands bandaged after an encounter with a run-of-the-mill band of thugs, and as he’d offered the comfortable small-talk he and Henrik shared personally, the doctor’s answers had been short and to the point. Jackieboy had wondered briefly if he’d done something to make him angry or to make him worry. If that was the case, he was confident he could reassure him. Out of all the Egos, he prided himself on having that ability.

At that moment, Henrik had stumbled over his own feet, narrowly catching himself on the nearest medical cart. Tools scattered, clanging to the floor, and Jackie had jumped, instantly on alert.

 _“What’re you doing?”_  His tone was too sharp, too demanding, poorly phrased,  _stupidly_  phrased.

 _“Nothing.”_  His tone was breathy, strangled, little more than a whisper.  _“Is nothing.”_  His voice cracked on the words as he leaned his weight on the cart, bowed his head over it to collect himself. Then he’d looked up with those wide, desperate, apologetic eyes that speared Jackie through the chest as he pushed himself off the cart and let gravity take its course.

Jackie caught him.

He held him. For the first time in too long, he saw him—too thin, too pale, too sick, barely reacting as Jackie supported his neck and carded his fingers through his tousled hair. Even through his gloves, his fingertips tingled with the feverish heat from the doctor’s skin. Jackie heard him bite back a whine, shivering words forcing their way past clenched teeth instead.

“ _Es t-tut mir Leid_.”

The hero had heard those words before.  _I’m sorry_. He’d heard them through Henrik’s half-stifled laughter when Jackieboy came home with two-thirds of a pine tree’s needles buried in his hair. He’d heard them accompanied by grudging, reluctant fidgeting after arguments and after offensive slips of the tongue and genuine accidents. He’d heard them said with sympathy after a bad day or just before he told him the stitches would hurt.

They’d never hit him harder.

“Don’t,” Jackie whispered, aghast. “ _Don’t_  be…”

Henrik made another stifled noise at that, tucking in his chin to hide his face against the hero’s chest. Helpless tears cut trails through the sweat and the stubble, following the hollows of his cheekbones and dripping down his jawline. Jackie felt the sobs hovering low in his friend’s ribcage, even if they never fully surfaced.

He moved his left hand from Henrik’s racing, stuttering heart to the bend in his knees. Henrik looked up then, his eyes glazed, not quite locking properly. Jackie found it hard to breathe as he saw the exhaustion—the dazed uncertainty—and that same terrible apology. He thought he’d failed, in his weakness.

“It’s okay,” the hero promised softly. Henrik exhaled lowly in acknowledgement, curled inward, let his eyes fall closed.

Relief. Openness. Trust.  _I don’t deserve any of it_ , Jackie mused numbly even as he tightened his hold and shifted forward.

 _Lock, support, lift_.

He carried him.

**Author's Note:**

> Let it be known that I will aggressively make them feel things until the end of time.


End file.
